Where did “piss poor” come from ?

Us older people need to learn something new every day..

Just to keep the grey matter tuned up.

Where did "Piss Poor" come from?
Interesting History.

They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot

And then once a day it was taken and sold to the tannery...

if you had to do this to survive you were "Piss Poor".
But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn't even afford to buy a pot...

They "didn't have a pot to piss in" and were the lowest of the low.

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature

Isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be.

Here are some facts about the 1500s

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May,

And they still smelled pretty good by June. However, since they were starting to smell,
Brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor.
Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water.

The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water,

Then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children.

Last of all the babies.

By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it.

Hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the Bath water!"

Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath.

It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals

(mice, bugs) lived in the roof.

When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof.
Hence the saying, "It's raining cats and dogs."
There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house.

This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings

Could mess up your nice clean bed.

Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection.

That's how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt.

Hence the saying, "Dirt poor." The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery

In the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing.

As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door,

It would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way.
Hence: a thresh hold.

(Getting quite an education, aren't you?)

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire.

Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables

And did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers

In the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day.

Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while.

Hence the rhyme:

“Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old”.
Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special.

When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off.

It was a sign of wealth that a man could, "bring home the bacon."

They would cut off a little to share with guests

And would all sit around and chew the fat.

Those with money had plates made of pewter.

Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food,

causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes,

so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status.

Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle,

and guests got the top, or the upper crust.
Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky.

The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days.

Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial.

They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around

and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up.

Hence the custom; “of holding a wake”.

England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people.

So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave.

When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks

on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive.

So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin

and up through the ground and tie it to a bell.
Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift.)

to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be,

“saved by the bell” or was “considered a dead ringer”

Interesting!

Well, aren't you just a wealth of information. Interesting. We say things that we have heard for years and don't know why. Thanks for the chuckle.

That was fun and interesting. Thanks for posting. Most of those sayings are still used today. I think that is amazing!

this is quite good and interesting thanks

http://www.snopes.com/language/phrases/wagon.asp

False etymology. (sorry)

Wow!! very interesting!!!

They were so good I thought it was all true :oops:

True or not, had fun reading it. Thanks for posting.

Sounded good to me, was fun to read, Thanks.

Oh, don't worry about it. I'm a history nut - it's impossible for me to let these things just slide by. and you would be AMAZED by the myths still going round....

thank you that was interesting

I just got an education! Thanks for all the info, very interesting...

That was a fun read. Thanks!

So did I, I got a big kick out of it.

Wow that was very informative I often wondered how some sayings came to be, or what the story was behind a saying. Thank you!

I don't care what Snopes says....they weren't there.

I'm 61 yrs young and I remember my Grandmom saying that so and so were so poor that they didn't have a pot to piss in nor a window to throw it out of...lol...Naomi

just opposite of rich bitch

Interesting I will have to save this info for my grrandchildren Thanks for sharing

Enjoyed those facts,never to old to learn Thanks.

Thanks! love all the info

check snopes.com and google etymology for more information on this subject. froggintexas

I have been passing trivia like this along at work, and they just love it.

Just curious, did you, by any chance go up to BC to the Anne Hathaway cottage? This information is told in the tour there, almost verbatim!

Good read!!!

Yeah, like snopes can be trusted?? Don't bet on it for everything.

neat! thank you for the info!

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-pis1.htm

from - http://www.pride-unlimited.com/probono/idioms2.html
In medieval London, people did not have indoor plumbing. It was common to use a chamber pot as an indoor toilet. The chamber pot could then be dumped out a window into the street gutter below. A person who did not have a "pot to piss in" was poor indeed.

In medieval times the word "piss" was not considered at all vulgar. It was not until Victorian England that words such as piss were deemed vulgar. Even today phrases like "pot to piss in" and "Full of Piss and Vinegar" are somehow considered to be generally acceptable and only moderately crude.

Definitely intriguing. Thanks for posting!

Love that Snopes! Thanks! It was also great fun reading. Thanks for that, too.

Very interesting..really enjoyed the education.

thanks i'm just laughing my rump off all by myself!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks my gray matter was certainly enlarged!!!!! I also had a few good laughs!

Some of this I had heard before but My mom's favorite saying was Piss poor and to poor to have a pot. Did not know about where they came from. Thanks for the info.

Fabulous stuff!

that was very informative, like a light bulb going off in your head ( do you know how that saying originated?

I had heard some of those before...but read some new ones! Always interesting!!

True or not they all made sense. And they were an interesting read! THX.

This is fun. I have often wondered about snopes. who writes what is true or not? Is snopes always correct?